On Wednesday, July 16, 2003, at 06:39  AM, Maddy Mason wrote:

> It is also prudent to keep in mind that although they rank first among
> the
> world's cultures in lifespan and number of centenarians, they are only
> months
> a


The US has double the number of centenarians as the Japanese, on a
per-capita basis, four times by actual count. One of the things that
makes me sceptical of other statistics.